A Wedding You Can Wear White To

Parable of The Wedding: Choosing Your Part

Step by step, lower and lower I glide my hand down the rail lined with white lilies spaced evenly as is the space between each step. The late April air slowly flows by, but the sun keeps me content as I take in the view below. 

Green and white flora drape every archway and seat. Chairs are aligned to create even lines of space. All seats are facing a brilliantly decorated arch in the center of a platform, backed by a mountainous scene.

Prior to this day, I had received my invitation. I saved the date. When I arrived a seat was prepared for me and I was ushered to it. 

The ceremony started. The love between the groom and his bride was felt through the beautiful words they shared. They embraced one another as if they had known each other for years. The story they spoke of wasn’t ending on this day, but starting something new. 

Then we all moved to a feast prepared. We ate, drank, sang and danced as we joyed in the celebration of their union and covenant with one another.

The whole evening seemed to be prepared for me, but the focus was on the groom and his bride. As the festivities ended, the groom left the crowd, taking only his bride. 

My invitation did not extend to anything past the feast and the celebration. This is where my invitation ended.

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The day had finally come. I had spent much time for months with the bride hearing of her plans and making her vision of this day become a reality. She was preparing for this day, and I helped her along the way. I had organized staff, arranged seating, hung lilies from rails, prepared meals, and lined up a band. It wasn’t my vision or plan, but I played a part in making it happen. 

As I stood where the guests were to enter, I helped them locate their seat. I watched, as many invited, walked down into the valley which I helped decorate with white lilies and green floras and which I helped arrange with chairs. 

We all quieted as the music planned, for the evening had begun. I watched the wedding party fulfill the plan which they had rehearsed. I smiled as I heard the words of love shared between the groom and his bride. 

Joy filled my heart as I celebrated with the crowd. I joined in the festivities. I danced and watched the groom embrace his bride. They smiled and laughed as they spun around the room. Their love was true and overflowing. 

As the dancing ended and the meal was over, the groom left with his bride. This is where my planning and preparation had finished. The day to celebrate their union was over, and that is where my role ended.

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I know the timing, I am ready for my entrance. The place is prepared, the guests have found their seats and the music has started. 

In my hand are three long stem lilies, tied together by a ribbon. Each step was planned and practiced, I follow the plan, because behind me another wedding party member will follow. So our timing and structure matters. 

I reach my prepared place in a line forming on either side of the adorned archway in the center of the stage. Behind me is a marvelous mountainous scene and in front of me are faces of friends, family, and guests who all came to witness the union between a groom and his bride.

As the music shifts and the bride makes her entrance my mind, along with many family members in the crowd’s, fills with memories we have shared with her. Some watched her grow up, others like me, grew up with her. We all think of the person she is today and join in celebrating the love she has found in her groom. 

We share in the impact that their union will bring to our family. We crowd together with embraces and smiles to create memories we can hang in frames and place in picture books. We relish the happiness we see on the bride’s face today. We eat and make merry as their commitment to one another has been made and we dance with expectant feelings of what their love will bring.

The night draws to a close, and the groom takes the hand of his bride and leaves with only her. We know from this night on we will see them again. Reunions, birthday parties, celebrations… we now have an added number to our party, but the commitment they made is between only the groom and his bride. The relationship they share will affect each of us, but day in and day out will belong to only them.   

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This is it. I have made myself ready. I took off the clothes I wore to decorate and prepare, and I have arrayed myself in fine linen, clean and bright white, because I am the Bride.

I remember and will never forget the day my groom proposed a life with him. I made my choice. 

Now my father stands before me. I trust my father. I trust in the love that he loved me with first. Before I knew how to love. My father named me, and he taught me of who I am created to be. Through the ups and downs of life, my father always prepared and provided good for me. 

Now my father takes my hand, he walks me down an isle to my groom. My groom has proven himself to my father. My father tells me my groom is worthy, because of the selfless love he has for me. I trust my father’s words.

As I hold my father’s hand, and he leads me, I have no worry. The planning, the decorating and the preparations are done. Prior to this day I said to my family and friends “Get Ready.” I told them all about my groom and how he loves me. I invited them to prepare with me and to attend our ceremony. They had expectant joy with me in preparing this party to celebrate the commitment my groom and I are making. During all the planning I confided in my family and friends of the peace and fullness I feel from the relationship I have with my groom. They are with me now this day to bear witness of this union. The union between only my groom and I.

My groom had been waiting. Standing beneath the arch centered on a stage, viewed by the friends, family and guests I had invited. 

I trust my groom. I had invited all of those who sit looking towards us, but it is my groom who invited me. He invited me into this commitment with him. He already had a plan and a purpose for life and he invited me to be apart of it. 

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You Are Invited 

There is a wedding preparing to happen. The invitation will not ask if you want chicken or beef. Rather, you will have one choice to make… 

What role will you choose to play in this wedding?

Will you choose to be a guest? No commitment, no responsibility to this union, simply a recipient of good news, but unaffected by the power it brings. 

James 1:19-27

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

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Will you choose to be a helper, maybe even a family member or friend to the Bride? Partaking in the preparation of the plan, but not being a part of the vision. Witnessing of the power of the union and hearing of the plans and good works, but not accepting the covenant made to you.

Matthew 7:21-27

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Matthew 13:13-23

“This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” 

Will you choose to be part of The Bride of Christ?

Isaiah 54:5
For your Maker is your husband, The LORD of hosts is His name;  And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;  He is called the God of the whole earth.

Revelation 19:7-9 

Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

Isaiah 62:5

As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Ephesians 5:25

…even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;